Stress Test

"Under the surface/ I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus" - Luisa  ("Surface Pressure", Ecanto)

Stress. Stress, stress, stress, STRESS. How do you handle stress? How do you deal with stress? What is stress?

Science defines stress as the body’s natural response to change. It is exciting, it keeps us busy and keeps us growing. An NBC article explains:

Good stress is the type of emotional challenge where a person feels in control and provides some sense of accomplishment. It can improve heart function and make the body resistant to infection, experts say. Far from being something we need to eliminate from our lives, good stress stimulates us.

("Can Stress Actually Be Good for You?", by Jane Weaver). 

So, while small amounts of stress for short periods of time is healthy, stress in large amounts…for long periods of time…is phewy. I remember learning in college biology about cells. All cells divide using DNA, of course. Every time the DNA replicates/doubles, for cell division, there is this long strip of random (non-coding) base-pairs that acts as a buffer zone. These strips are called telomeres. 

They get shorter every time the cell divides, and when they get to the end, after multiple divisions…phewy, that’s one way cells start to mutate, or they die. There is a lot of research on this biochemical mechanism and it's relation to health and ageing ("The Telomere Theory of Ageing", by Mark Stibich, PhD).

The protective strands may be replenished, but the process of prolonged stress is not good news for them. It causes an abundance of free radicals, which are basically just highly reactive molecules (they are like the person at the party that tries too hard and just ends up breaking up bonds between the other guests). The free radicals decrease telomere length, faster and limit the cells’ ability to replenish their telomeres.

This is all to say, I learned that stress literally decreases the life of the cell, and thereby literally can shorten life. And that is just ONE way of many, in which prolonged, oxidative (toxic) stress can negatively affect the body. (I learned a lot about stress from Dr. Caroline Leaf, in her empowering book, "Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health").

So, if stress is necessary, healthy even, but can be destructive (when turned on too long), well, then maybe a good place to start, is to acknowledge that it’s there.

Like a little child on the playground saying, “look, Mummy! Watch me, Daddy!” Maybe our stress just wants to be noticed. Maybe it’ll plug away at our subconscious until its conscious—very conscious—self-conscious, and even physical! Like, listen to me, already!

A few things I get stressed about are:

·         Things I know or believe I should be doing, that I’m not.

·         A fear of forgetting something.

·         Someone rushing me (my daughter told me, today this one applies to her).

·         Something getting in the way of me doing what I planned or want to do.

·         Battling a desire that is at odds with my values (addiction really applies, here).

·         Too many competing voices—can lead to feeling distracted, and then overwhelmed.

·         Too much on the go at once, leading to an inability to focus, feeling scattered, inefficient.

·         My own limitations in ability, or time.

·         Limitations of others.

So, basically, not getting my way. When I break down and simplify each one of these I can pin-point them to one thing: pressure to act in a way that doesn’t feel like me. Therefore, when I experience stress, it is easy for me to take it as a direct attack on who I am; my identity is under assault. There is little that could be more infuriating than this.

When I say, “not getting my way”, what is “my way”? I suppose it is following the false narrative that I adopt (in an unhealthy attitude), that “everything must work out”, which goes back to the illusion that I am and must remain in control. Or else, boom. Whether it’s a limitation in me or someone else, it’s still an assault on my adopted world view that it should all work out for me, according to my understanding.

Acceptance, therefore, is the key. Reality.

So, I can pause. Breathe. Admit that I am powerless on my own and my life has become unmanageable (practice Step 1).

I can admit that; ok, so things are not working out for me. Ok. What I thought is not coming to pass in the way I thought. But…

I can have hope for something better. Hope for serenity: acceptance of the things I do not have control over, power to change the things I can (patiently, respectfully to myself and others), and the wisdome to know the difference.

I can believe that “a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity”. It can be God. But if that doesn’t feel right, for whatever reason, I have heard it working for others to believe in other things. Someone I heard of once, used an egg. The idea is to believe in a power greater than our imperfect, falling-on-our-face-again-and-again, out-of-control selves.

Step 3 is to make “a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him.” Elect a new manager. It takes time.

This is also a step that must be practiced again and again, as many times as I forget and think that I am on my own, and that I gotta do it on my own. “It” meaning life, or anything. I'm never completely alone, if I don't want to be.

Now, there are few things that represent stress to me more than learning to drive. For me, driving took YEARS before I could become the (sometimes too) comfortable driver I am, today. I mean years. Like, ten. Even so, I would still have anxiety if I ever needed to prepare for and take another driving test.

For fun, and maybe to bring back some memories for some, and for others to just demonstrate an example of what really stresses me out, I will share this little personal essay/poem I wrote in high school, at the time that I was learning to drive.

 

 

First Day of Driving

By Elias Orrego

 

Check your mirrors—the sides and rear view—are they clean? Are they adjusted? Are you adjusted? Fit your seat to your size, and the positioning of your torso and legs. You should be able to reach the steering wheel comfortably with both hands, and both the brake, and acceleration with your feet, but your knees shouldn’t knock against the steering wheel. Back your seat up a bit. That’s pretty good.

Okay, click in your seat belt. All the way now, you don’t want it coming out on you when you’re driving eighty kilometers an hour, as you slam on the brakes, but that won’t happen to you. You’ll drive slowly and be more careful than that idiot over in Hilton who died last week when his car flipped over the guard rail. The glass shards tattooed his scalp. Insurance only covers so much—brain replacement isn’t covered by ours either—so use yours while you still got it.

Ready to start? Start the engine. The key with the square handle, yes. Okay, enough! Stop! You stop applying pressure to the key, the moment you hear the engine start. If you keep it turned longer, you’ll kill the battery.

Now, look just in front of the steering wheel, right underneath the dash. See that little orange arrow? That tells you what gear you’re in. To change it, you put your foot on the brake, pull the right stick forward, and—no, that’s the blinker, right stick, the big one, yes. Now, never mix up the brake and acceleration that way. I saw some Saturn driver do that. Watch out for Saturn drivers; they usually don’t know what they’re doing—who else drives a car that’s fifty-percent plastic?

Now, touch the gas lightly to back out of the parking space. Ehhem. ALWAYS look behind you WHILE you’re backing out. Don’t make the same mistake VW’s always seem to make. They always bug me.

9Turn the wheels left. Other left. (Don’t make that mistake again. Remember right is the hand you write with. Unless you are left handed. If you are lefthanded, get out of the car. Get out. Now. Oh, you’re right handed. Are you? Good). Straighten. You’re almost out. Don’t hit that BMW to the left of us, they’ll make you pay if you knick them with your door as you open it—even if it was an accident, and even if you leave an apology note, with your number. They have lawyers in the back seat. That F100 from the 80’s to the right  of us is fair game, though; those rust guys wouldn’t notice if you put a hundred more scratches to the side of their rust bowls.

Good straightening. Drive slowly in the parking lot now. Good, put your indicator to the left to turn left. Other left! Pull it down! You don’t want to give people the wrong idea because you might cause an accident like that. That motorcyclist speeding past right there would’ve run right into the side of us, sending him flying right over the top of us, into that intersection down there.

Head impounded into the asphalt; no flowers at the funeral of an idiot, but you’d have to live with the fact that he wasn’t an idiot. It would be your entire fault. So be careful.

The only vehicles you can startle like that are Mazda’s. They don’t have the greatest brakes, but they seem to driven by retired race car drivers or car thieves on probation.

Stop at the red light, just up here. Press the ball of your foot to the flat of the pedal and apply pressure at the precise increasing degree needed. Slow the car to a stop, at the exact moment the curve of the tires obliquely touches the white line. If you pass the white line, you may fail your test.

Phew! If that VW Minibus didn’t turn right, we would’ve been stuck behind one of those at a red light. They are always driven by hippies who condemn idlers and shut off their car every time they stop.

Don’t put your finger up there! It’s a myth that no one can see you through glass windows. The only cars that are Lincoln’s and Volvo’s because they are driven by overworked, overpaid businessmen, who’s only thrill in life comes from braking unwritten social rules. Only they can pick.

Oh, it’s green, go! Whoa!! That’s a little bit of a pick-me-off-my-feet there; you don’t need to burn all the gas out at one traffic light. Leave that to the Mustang’s. Stay within the lane, you’re veering to the left! Oh, don’t overcorrect, just little corrections. Little corrections! You are driving like a drunk.

Okay, the road curves up ahead, so don’t…DON’T go into the other lane! Phew! Stop panting like a mad man! That was bad. Yes, I will yell at you, you almost—

Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just that you almost killed us. That’s all. Just. Almost killed us. Ha.

This is good; this is calm. This is straight—whoa! Hear that siren? See the lights in your rear-view mirror? Pull over!

There it goes, zooming past us. That was a cop car, and they sometimes get those urges to have a cup of coffee, or their cholesterol all of a sudden yearns for a dripping glazed donut, out of the clear blue. Let them pass you.

Okay, back into the middle lane now; there you go. Ah, just as I thought. Those Minivans always cut you off, because they are driven by enthused soccer mums, late again, for their child’s game. Just let them pass you every time. Actual, let everyone go. They’re all road-raged by now.

Alright, you can drive back at the speed limit now; we’re alone on the road. But still, stay in your own lane.